Darling Clementine Read Free

Budget, Breakdown, Tax Cut, Rebel, Fundamentalist.”
    When Arthur comes through the door, I run into his arms, crying, “Did you read about that big tax cut for the rebels? And how about those fundamentalists?”
    But he has already hoisted me over his shoulder and is carrying me to the bedroom.
    First I will tell you about my therapist, and then I will tell you about God. My therapist is named James—Doctor James—Blumenthal. About a year ago, I walked into his office, which is on Park Avenue and 86th Street, and sat on the brown easy chair, facing him.
    â€œMy name is Samantha Bradford, and I am 24,” I said to him. “My usual sexual fantasy has to do with being branded.”
    â€œPlease don’t smoke in here,” said Dr. Blumenthal—I had just put a cigarette in the corner of my mouth. “I have a problem with ventilation,” he said. I put the cigarette back in the pack (that night, I had a dream about that: trying desperately to stuff the cigarette back into the pack, but it was too big) and went ahead.
    â€œUsually,” I said, “I fantasize that I am walking down the street when a black limousine pulls up beside me, two men jump out, drag me inside and drug me. When I wake up, I’m on an island—I don’t know where, but it is a place immune to international law. A handsome millionaire has bought the island—he’s a dark, bearded man in his fifties but in good shape, though sometimes—” I added, “he’s someone I’ve met or seen or a movie star, but anyway, he’s assembling a seraglio and he wants me to be in it. He commands me to take my clothes off or be killed so I have to do it, and then I have to bend over this sort of bench contraption and just lie there while he takes a red-hot brand and burns his initials into my ass. Usually, if I’m masturbating or having sex, I come then—with the image of me kicking and screaming and being branded, and then, as I’m coming down from the orgasm, I see myself lying across my master’s lap or at his feet, all tamed and passive while he fingers me or fucks one of his other odalisques.”
    Then, I stared Dr. Blumenthal directly in the eye—sort of defiantly, you might say. Dr. Blumenthal is in his late forties. He has a broad, mushy face, all pockmarked as if he had a bad case of acne when he was young. His hair is kind of grayish yellow, and very fine and falls over his forehead. Whenever he talks, just before he does, he always shifts his body in his chair as if to get more comfortable. He has a shapeless body, I guess: just a rumpled gray suit growing out of the chair.
    So I look him in the eye, and he shifts a little and says:
    â€œSo what seems to be the problem, Samantha?”
    I start to cry. Elizabeth told me I would and I swore not to, but there it is. I think it was the way he said my name, as if I were a friend who had come to him for help.
    â€œI tried to kill myself a while ago,” I say, choking and sniffling.
    Dr. Blumenthal shifts, looking concerned. “Did you succeed?”
    â€œWhat?” I start to laugh at the same time I am sobbing and sobbing. Then it comes rushing out of me: “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die, I’m so afraid. Can you help me?”
    â€œIt’s hard to say,” he says. “Depends on whether or not I can find my branding iron.”
    I laugh again.
    â€œI know it’s here somewhere,” he says, very serious, looking around.
    Now, I am laughing more than crying, because this is not what I expected at all. When I’m finished with everything—crying, laughing, nose-blowing—I look at him, and I don’t know what to say. I’m embarrassed—but it feels good to be embarrassed, it feels human, as if I have never felt human before.
    Dr. Blumenthal shifts in his chair. “Tell me about the suicide attempt,” he says.
    The fact is, as I am